'Nothing provokes more suspicion and vitriol than a planned Gypsy camp' - Swansea

From Wales Online

Perhaps it’s too early to say with certainty, but the simmering row over proposals for a permanent Gypsy camp on the edge of Sully is threatening to turn dangerously poisonous.

It’s the sort of issue which can tear apart the civilised facade of communities, revealing ugly aspects we would rather conceal.

House-building often causes anger in communities, particularly if they are so-called “affordable homes.” But nothing provokes more suspicion and vitriol than a planned Gypsy camp.

There is often a kind of banality in the underlying hostility and nastiness one witnesses at various public meetings which are called when a community feels under threat. Rarely is it laid bare, but it is a fuse waiting for a spark.

There are many lessons from history which teach us how often ill-conceived antagonism between different groups in communities can fester and lead to horrors and atrocities if not handled very carefully and with compromise on both sides.

At a crowded public meeting in Sully to discuss the Vale council’s plan to make the currently illegal Gypsy site at the gateway to the village the area’s official, permanent Travellers site, there was just a suggestion that those lessons might need to be learned again.

The proximity of Sully’s section of the Wales Coast Path to the proposed camp was raised as a concern. Apparently, the fear was than decent people who might otherwise walk along the path might think twice when they realised that Gypsies would be in their midst.

The site was formerly used as a recycling centre, what I used to call a rubbish tip. What impact this might have had on walkers was not raised at the meeting.

The unspoken threat that the Gypsies might pose to young autistic students at nearby Beechwood College has also been raised as a concern.

The age of austerity in which we live tends to foster suspicion and dislike between different groups in communities. It is not helped by a UK Government which encourages “hard working people who do the right thing” to view others who, through no fault of their own, may be less fortunate merely as “skivers.”

I doubt if there is a community in Wales which would welcome a Gypsy camp. That probably says more about Wales, where we are supposed to keep a welcome in the hillsides, than it does about Gypsies.

As philosopher Thomas Hobbes suggested, if this kind of self-interest goes unchecked life is likely to be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish.”

What is required is a “social contract” to create a civil society.

Of course, the Gypsies will have to contribute to such a contract with the Sully community.

The signs are not encouraging. When I visited the Sully camp some time ago I was sent away with a flea in my ear. It was made pretty clear that a representative of the gutter press was not welcome and that I needn’t bother returning. I haven’t and I probably won’t unless properly invited

It is all quite worrying. Thankfully, there are welcome voices of calm and reason in Sully. Let’s hope that they prevail.